


Forgive me father

by Millimoi



Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-29
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-05-17 02:12:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5849953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Millimoi/pseuds/Millimoi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>TV Shows » Call the Midwife » Forgive me Father<br/>Author: PixieXW	<br/>Rated: K+ - English - Angst/Family - Reviews: 2 - Published: 01-26-16 - Updated: 01-29-16	id:11754938<br/>(A/N) sorry to everyone who expected this to be the first chapter of a new story, but hopefully a long, one-piece story will follow this post.</p><p>This story, I will tell you now, is based around an important part in the life of any LGBT person. This is the story of a much younger Patsy Mount- her realisation story. The time in her life when she became aware that she was gay.</p><p>Some of you might have an incline but others probably won't know at all. I myself am gay; and the relationship I have with my amazing girlfriend is very similar to the relationshpip that Patsy and Delia have. This story, which I have started writing and will hopefully finish for you guys soon, is very hard for me to write- it's very close to my own story in some ways, and because of this I want to be sure that people want to read this before I put it out there, and to ask that you read with the understanding this is our story- not just Patsy's- and through that, that you read it sympathetically.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forgive me father

"Forgive me father, for I have sinned, it has been a week since my last confession."  
Still, nearly seven decades later I could have recited the words in my sleep. Every Sunday from eleven to eighteen, I would attend confession after our Sunday service at school. Times had changed of course, and sitting over a cup of tea waiting for my grandson, Jack, to rouse from his spot in my bed, I thought about how different things were today.   
I remembered the Sunday when I had accidentally changed things for myself, the Sunday when I learned a huge lesson. Not everyone is accepted in this world.   
I sipped my tea and thought about the old confession box. You went in the small door on the right, into a space just big enough to turn round, fix your skirt, and sit on the small wooden bench. The bench sat close to the ground, small enough for the younger children to sit on without swinging their legs. I remembered sitting on it as we got older, with our knees brushing our chins.   
Further up on the wall was the curtained gap, a window between yourself and the priest. The curtain was a rich red and made of the same rough fabric used on the pew cushions. I remembered ten smell too- the damp of the church and the smell of the mothballs and old books.   
I found my eyes were gazing into the teacup- or mug- as were used nowadays, looking down at the fawn liquid, and the blue stripes painted on the ceramic surface. The blue reminded me of the uniform we wore at school, the colours every girl had to abide by.   
The younger girls wore royal blue pinafores with a white blouse and black leather shoes, the older girls- from eleven to eighteen, we wore knee-length blue skirts with our blouses, and white knee high socks with a blue stripe near the top. Blue hair bands were allowed but all other accessories, such as our hankies, had to be white. Even brasiers- which were not permitted below age thirteen- had to be white.   
I had not long received my first bra- after an Aunt took me to buy some- when the day happened. I remember wearing it, and feeling proud to be old enough but was secretly very uncomfortable and hated the thing at first.   
My next memory, after the uncomfortable and itchy bra, were the thoughts, the words flying through my head as I prepared to tell the priest all that was troubling me.   
I was hesitant to tell him- after all he was a man and men shouldn't be involved in matters of the female heart. I knew I couldn't tell anyone else, although I technically did not know it would be bad to tell them I just, had a feeling. I felt the priest I could tell in confidence and he would explain what God had planned for me. He would tell me if this was a blessing or a challenge, and I would accept his words and move on. I remember retracing my thoughts, thinking about what had actually happened before making the priest aware.   
It had began in our six-to-a-room dormitories. Each room consisted of a mixed age group of girls in hope that the elder girls would support and advise the younger ones. I was in a Dormitory with three girls in my own year, one aged 17 and the eldest 18. I didn't care much for the girls my age. One of them- Annabeth or Annabell, I couldn't tell you- was nice enough, and we often had conversations about things other than boys which was all the other two girls seemed to talk about. We were getting dressed for bed a week or so before my visit to confession, and the other two girls who's names I can no longer remember, were talking about the new games teacher. He was one of only two male teachers in the school (the other was a grumpy old man who taught chemistry) and he was supposedly rather handsome.   
Mr Rogers was from Swansea and only in his twenties. He played rugby and football but his passion was in teaching Hockey. He was a man who's shoulders must've been at least double the width of his waist, he had a crop of blonde hair which was slicked back neatly.   
"He was smiling at me," one of the girls- another blondie- was gushing to her friend.   
"Oh he is a smasher, isn't he Anna?" The second girl turned her attention onto my friend.   
I still remember feeling trapped, I knew what was coming and dreaded it. You see, all the other girls my age seemed to look at men differently from me, they saw them as something to be gazed and and admired, while they saw the white Rose I saw a common dandelion. Men or boys of any age to me were just, well, people. The thing was the other girls in my classes, they never stopped talking about boys. All that seemed to be on their minds were muscles and moustaches and the things that lay under clothes.   
To be perfectly honest the statues of Greek men we had seen at the museum didn't inspire much confidence, the penis was a small slug-like projection on the stomach. It was ugly and strange and- just like the rest of their body structures- something I didn't see anything exciting in.   
"Oh," Anna had replied, her voice quiet and mousey, her cheeks starting to turn a slow red.  
"I think his eyes are lovely, very soulful."   
"What about you Patsy?" The second girl asked me. My tongue got all tied up and I tried unsuccessfully to splutter something which sounded like a compliment.   
"He's fine." That was the final result, I automatically felt my own cheeks go red as the others my age began to giggle at me.   
"Fine? oh Patsy," Anna giggled.   
"You sure your not a, a sophist Patsy?" One of the older girls in the dormitory asked, and spluttered on her laughter.   
I had never heard that word before, it wasn't often spoken then and it is spoken even less often now. In fact, as the new laws had come to light this year and things had changed people seemed to forget there were originally so few terms for it. Taking another sip of my tea I cast myself deeper into the memory.   
I looked around at all the tearful, giggling girls before my eyes finally caught on Georgie. Georgie was the name of the eldest in our room, and also the kindest. She was very much the mother hen that should have been in a dormitory with the first years but I was always glad she was in our room. It was the only one I could possibly have asked.   
"Georgie, what is, what's that ?"   
Georgie looked serious, shushing the other girls before she looked straight at me and said her answer in less than a whisper.   
"It's, I mean, it's totally unnatural of course and we were only picking fun but, well, it's the old name for lesbianism."   
This wasn't a word I had heard either, but then neither had the blonde girl since her reply was,   
"You mean, there's a word for it? For thinking you love a girl?"   
"Thinking, yes, loving- don't be silly," the friend of blondie intercepted.   
"It's impossible to fall in love with another girl. My father is a surgeon and he says it's just another word for Sodomy, we all know sodomy is one of the greatest sins."  
That, was something I did know, and the thing that remained with me after the lights had gone out.   
I remember the smell of the thick, rug-like blankets on our beds, the smell of the starched sheets. I remember lying on my back, arms stretched out at my sides on top of the blankets- the only way we were permitted to sleep in those days- and thinking about the day's events.   
Sodomy. I knew it was something that involved two men, but I didn't know why it was so wrong, nor why that girl had said girls could not love other girls. Didn't mother and daughter love? I wasn't so naive that I didn't see the difference between the two relationships, I simply could not understand why it was wrong.   
Looking back, it took me a few evening of lying awake to realise why the prosecution was so wrong. I began to add the facts; I was not interested in the appearance of boys; I found other girls very pretty. Was there more to finding them pretty? Some other reason that the breasts of the older girls fascinated me.   
The more I thought, the more I knew and the more scared I become. I was one of them, it made sense. It was clear in my mind. For two nights after I knew all I could do was cry. Everything upset me from a telling off to dropping my handkerchief, because I knew something had to be wrong with me, something was broken and I needed to fix it.   
That brought me to the confession box. Brought me to the dark, with the little bench, red curtain and the smell of mothballs. I remembered holding my breath, my heart thumping in my chest as I prepared to tell the priest, to say I was broken and I needed fixing.   
"Forgive me father, for I have sinned, it has been one week since my last confession."   
"Nana!"   
The word interrupted my thoughts as a tear away three year old came dashing into the room in his pyjamas and slippers.   
I didn't tell the priest that day, and the reason followed my grandson into the room. Mrs Delia Jane Mount had lane in my future, had been there to show me what I couldn't see at fourteen. God tests us in many ways, but he only gives us tasks we have the strength to overcome. God had taught me something through Mr Rogers- and not just that my future lay in Wales. He had taught me that love comes in many forms, styles and ways, he showed me that I was not wrong, I was simply an area to be explored, a right to be stood for and an acceptance to be admired. He had shown me the light through the ancient word agape, and led me to where I truly belonged.


End file.
